Let’s go to Dungeness

Editing these photos just now has filled me with such longing for this beautifully desolate area of the country. I don’t think there’s really anything else I can say about Dungeness which has been said by a thousand other people – it’s stark, it’s barren, it feels like the end of the world. I loved it.

There’s a smattering of houses, two pubs, two lighthouses, an odd little railway, even odder structures, and a power station. Other than that, there’s silence except for the occasional siren from the lighthouse or alarm from the power station. It really is a great place to get away from society (but not too far away).

OK, so I’ve romanticised our trip somewhat and I’m sure it’s a very different place in the summer but November definitely felt bleak.

We had a guess at what this structure was but didn’t come close to what the internet says it’s for. As well as a wooden T, there’s also a wooden diamond further down the beach, and fisherman at sea could apparently line these two structures up to know where to navigate home.

I don’t know if we were just lucky, but as I mentioned in my post about the Fog Signal Building where we stayed, we had such beautiful light on our little walks around the estate.

There aren’t many photos of the residences here because I didn’t want to encroach on people’s privacy so we stuck to the beach. Turn left out of our back garden – lots of abandoned boats.

And some creepy nuclear radiation detecting things (I think?)

Turn right and you come across the power station. Somewhat unsettling for those with a propensity to overreact (such as myself). In my defence, the warning signs around the place are terrifying, and the less said about the cloud in the sky one night, the better.

Everything was closed because it was November (of course) so we didn’t get to go on the mini-railway or go up the old lighthouse so we’ll definitely need to go back. Hopefully there’ll be less fog next time, so the new lighthouse doesn’t keep us awake.